Citizens Who Are Registered to Vote Can Weigh In On Big Issues Facing Pacific 

By Pauline Masson –

The upcoming municipal election gives citizens an opportunity to weigh in on three important measures that elected aldermen will face – selecting a new city administrator, improving or building a new swimming pool, and luring motorists to stop in Pacific during the promised 2026 Route 66 birthday rush – if they are registered to vote.

Finding a city administrator, who can put new life into the aging swimming pool and help local businesses and civic groups woo Route 66 motorists to stop and shop is a no brainer. We already have a city administrator who can do that.

In our history, six individuals have held the post of city administrator: Herb Apptel, Gerald Hartmann, JoAnn Hoehne, John Openlander, Harold Selby, and Steve Roth. As a working reporter, I observed city government and wrote news stories during the terms of four administrators, Ms. Hoehne, Mr. Openlander, Mr. Selby and Mr. Roth.

While past mayors, aldermen and community leaders have marshaled through important improvements like a public water system, community flood response, a volunteer (later fully paid) fire protection district, and our beloved section of Route 66, no individual in recent history has brought to Pacific the portfolio of improvements that Mr. Selby has delivered.

Aldermen James Cleeve and Scott Lesh became angry at Mr. Selby for emotional comments he made during discussions over whether or not city workers should get a pay raise. Mr. Selby fought – maybe harder than was considered politically correct – to persuade aldermen to approve across the board pay raises for all city employees. Mr. Cleeve and Mr. Lesh opposed the pay increase plan.

In one discussion, Mr. Selby said to Mr. Lesh, “I’m not going to answer that because you are a No vote,” (on the raises.) He told Mr. Cleeve that if he (Cleeve) had spent as much time on the city budget as he spent writing a handbook for future elected officials he would know what he needed to know about the proposed raises. More on the handbook later.

Both aldermen took umbrage at the audacity of a city administrator who would dare to challenge aldermen in a push to raise workers’ pay. For his part, Mr. Selby publicly apologized for his comments, saying he was pretty emotional about the raises. But it wasn’t enough. The two aldermen stepped up efforts to attract and hire a new administrator with the same dogged persistence that Mr.Cleeve had lavished on his handbook.

But here’s thing, cooler heads need to prevail here. Mr. Cleeve and Mr. Lesh may want a city administrator who gives them what they deem proper respect. But the city needs city administrator who can get things done.

Before he ever worked in Pacific, Harold Selby served seven years in the Missouri House of Representatives. He would have been term-limited out in November 2006. As Pacific’s state representative he wrote and pushed to pass legislation that enabled Pacific to annex the Missouri Eastern Correctional Center on East Osage, to collect a bed tax to promote tourism, and to qualify for Neighborhood Assistance Program tax credits to help build our senior center, which, when it opened was the only fully paid for senior center in Franklin County.

He resigned his House seat early to accept the Pacific city administrator position on Oct. 1, 2005. Former Mayor Jeff Titter hired him. He stayed until 2014 when in a ‘take no prisoners’ battle to redress what he considered mis-steps in management of the City’s two cemeteries, mayor Jeff Palmore refused to renew his contract. He then went to the City of St. James where he served as city administrator.

Most of Mr. Selby’s eight-year tenure in Pacific was spent working for and with former mayor Herb Adams. 

The pair saw our city inducted into the Missouri Pacific Railroad’s Train Town USA program, placed the much-disputed cemetery records on line, and during the 2013 flood, they orchestrated an emergency management system – that still guides emergency activities today – to aid victims. As flood waters receded they applied for and received a federal flood buy out program for the city to purchase about 35 flooded properties, enabling victims to rebuild their lives. They did not hire an outside expert to manage the buyouts. Mr. Selby worked with government agencies and each property owner to complete each purchase.

When Gina and Mark Pingleton sought to develop a memorial park where parents could preserve the memories of children who died too young, Mr Selby helped develop ADAM’s garden on West Osage. Following a phone call to one of his Cedar Hill neighbors, Gill Schroeder Sod Sales donated sod for the little pocket memorial park and sent a crew to lay the carpet of sod for the opening day.

When the Krause family had to move their rodeo out of a Eureka park, Mr. Selby saw an opportunity to bring it to Pacific. He did not hire an outside expert to tell him how to stage a rodeo. He negotiated the contract and worked with the city park board, the public works department and the local cowboy community to develop the equestrian center in Liberty Field.

“There were a lot of volunteers working on that,” Mr.Selby said. “Bill McLaren, Loyd Harris and Richard Adams were out there moving fences and tilling dirt.”

The result was the annual Iron Horse Rodeo, arguably the most popular annual public event in Pacific history.  

Mr. Selby also worked with Franklin County to develop the Brush Creek Sewer District, oversaw the installation of surveillance cameras on public property, worked with the Pacific Partnership in the development of Pacific Station Plaza.

When the mayor and aldermen decided to restructure the outdated city hall they hired a contract manager at a cost of $80,000. But after two weeks, when it became clear that the contract manager was relying on the city staff to do his job, Mr. Selby decided the contractor should be let go. Mr. Selby managed the construction of the current government center that is the envy of Franklin County.

Through it all, each spring he volunteered at the senior center, senior apartments, in private homes and in his city hall office to fill out income tax returns for senior citizens at no cost. In his final year, he filed returns that brought close to $300,000 back to Pacific seniors.

I once wrote a column saying that he reminded me of the tiny robo vacuum that cleaned my floors, humming back and forth, circling around corners, under furniture, and stopping smartly if it touched a human foot. He did not find that comparison thrilling, but it worked for me. 

I recall a conversation with Governor Bob Holden, who was speaking at a Union gathering in St. Louis. When he learned I was from Pacific he remembered Mr. Selby. 

“That guy never stops,” the governor said. “When he was lobbying me for NAP tax credits so Pacific could build its senior center, I came out of my office one evening after 9:00 p.m. and he was sitting there on the bench outside my door. He wanted to make one more pitch.

Former Mayor Adams, who worked with the same four administrators that I reported on, said the thing that Mr. Selby brought to our city was a vast understanding of state and county government and even St. Louis County. He knew how to work with all these agencies.

“I worked closest with Harold. He was my favorite administrator because of his connections in Jefferson City. That made him very important to a city like Pacific,” Adams said. “He brought millions of dollars in grants to Pacific for projects we’d never had before.”

“He worked with FEMA and SEMA on the flood buyouts; with Franklin County on the Brush Creek Sewer District project; and with St. Louis County on annexing the prison,” Adams said. “If it had not been for Harold, we would never have expanded our city limits to the east.”

So the conclusion of this revisit to earlier valuable events is simple. Mr. Cleeve and Mr. Lesh need to look to the greater good of the city, get past the spat over city worker pay raises and persuade Mr. Selby to stay two or three years to guide us through a new and/or improved swimming pool and a chance to capitalize on our stretch of Route 66, which is this reporter’s view is one of the best in the Country.

I’m fully aware that if they hold onto their hurt feelings things still might work out. They may attract someone from Omaha, Oklahoma City or Osh Kosh, Wisconsin to come here and run our city for starter pay. But their best bet is Mr. Selby.

If you know either of them well enough, please consider talking to them about this. Or, talk to any candidate that you might favor. Mr. Cleeve tells me people never call him and he would love to hear what the citizens really want. Here’s your chance.

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The last day you can register to vote in the April 6 municipal election is March 6. You can register at Pacific License Bureau, 730 West Osage Street, Pacific; Scenic Regional Library, Pacific Branch, 111 Lamar Parkway, Pacific; and Franklin County Clerk’s Office, County Government Building, 400 E Locust room 201. Union.